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2d

painting and drawing | life drawing | concepts of figuration | contemporary abstraction

2d Faculty: Derrick Buisch, Nancy Mladenoff, T.L. Solien and Fred Stonehouse

painting and drawing

This program emphasizes advance mastery of the "artistic discipline." The course of study provides an understanding of historical and contemporary painting and drawing practices, skills and techniques for further creative and expressive development. Individual expression is encouraged and supported by faculty who advocate a wide range of aesthetic views.

life drawing

Life Drawing trains the hand, eye and mind in the timeless pursuit of the figurative image. The human figure challenges the observant artist working with drawing and painting materials on paper as no other form can. Students sharpen their observational skills, enlarge their figurative visual repertoire or engage in provocative self-expression. Through the act of "drawing ourselves" via the model, we engage in a complex dialogue of understanding who we are from the distance and dispassion of an observer. As we try to reveal the truth of what we see before us, we also confront and celebrate the uniqueness of the human form in the psychological and emotional connections resident in no other subject.

concepts of figuration

Courses in figuration encourage creative exploration of the "figurative" transmission of the "human condition." Anthropological, cultural, socio-political, gender, sexual, racial, and dreamlife imaging become primary to the understanding of personal or group identity, place, cultural and familial dynamics, sexuality and gender identification. Figurative painting is open to the use of traditional and extreme image making methods including observational, illusionism, fictive representation or other conceptual premises relevant to the successful presentation of privately held concerns.

contemporary abstraction

Contemporary abstraction examiness the understanding and development of issues related to abstraction's concerns. It focuses on the conceptual and technical advances during the last twenty years. Drawing on the re-emergence of the debate that characterized the role of painting initiated by Clement Greenberg in the 1940's and Michael Fried in the 1960's. Contemporary abstraction explores the observations fostered by the prevailing art critics and artists currently practicing and writing about abstraction. Emphasis is placed on the development of the technical and conceptual skills necessary to realize personal vision and critical evaluations as well as the investigation of materials and techniques currently applied by contemporary abstract painters.